THE International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board has approved the lender’s administrative and capital budgets for the financial year 2021-22, and took note of the medium-term budget for FY 2023-24.

The approved net administrative budget for FY22, which covers all administrative expenses less receipts, primarily from external sources to help support capacity building activities and excluding lending income, has been set at USD 1,214 million.

The capital budget is set at USD 79 million and provides financing for building facilities and information technology capital projects. This includes projects to modernise digital platforms and tools. In response to the industry shift towards cloud-subscription based information technology solutions, the executive board has approved a change in the budgetary treatment of these expenses.

"The FY22 budget is set in the context of a global economic outlook that is marked by high uncertainty and the likelihood of uneven recovery, with many countries facing daunting crisis legacies," said the IMF on Thursday.

In light of immediate crisis-related needs, the board has also approved a temporary increase in the maximum amount of unused budget resources that can be carried forward from previous years from 5 to 8 per cent of the underlying budget.

The budget provides for continued fund support for its membership with the immediate crisis response and to navigate a safe exit from the crisis. It provides incremental resources for long-term priorities within an unchanged resource envelope in real terms for the tenth year in a row, measured relative to the IMF’s budget deflator.